I hear, from time to time, people describing an anti-climax or a disappointing event as having been a “damp squid”. Now all healthy squids are damp, but what relevance a damp one has to something that was anti-climactic I cannot fathom.

A British survey has found that, nationwide, 35.7 million days are wasted annually searching for missing documents, and that males over 45 have the messiest desks. One in 10 messy office workers admits to having lost business because of a cluttered desk.

Since about AD1234 (or was it AD1244?) it has been generally believed that people who have messy desks have messy minds.

The Star’s Verve section was going on the other day about how to restore “the core” – that belt of muscles that supports the spine, but in many of us has become buried by a spare tyre of fat. The article suggested some very boring exercise.

I have always advocated that gardening is the way to exercise the core muscles. Especially digging and mowing.

A visiting English couple wrote to a newspaper, expressing their shock at seeing “children doing jobs that should be for adults – like shepherding sheep in lion country, or driving cattle along the highway” in Mpumalanga.

Yet, a recent study revealed that children in England are also doing adult jobs during their holidays.